Restore commitment to nuclear modernization

President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget request to modernize our nation’s aging nuclear weapons and laboratories falls about $370 million short of what the Senate deemed necessary when it supported the 2010 New START treaty.

In explaining this, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Thomas D’Agostino, told Congress, “the reality I have to deal with is the appropriation I received from Congress last December, … which reduced our budget by over $400 million.”

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This perceived lack of congression-al support led the administration to delay, from two years to seven years, refurbishing our aging nuclear weapons and building a critical plutonium handling facility.

But Congress can alter this “reality.” It can restore the commitment to nuclear modernization basic to New START and avoid some of the schedule delays that the military regards as risky.

Indeed, restored funding could be achieved with a combination of administrative reforms across the nuclear weapons complex, execution of the $125 million transfer authority granted to the defense secretary in the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act and a measured increase in the FY2013 appropriation for the national nuclear administration from lesser priorities.

During recent hearings, several important conclusions became obvious.

First, the plan to modernize our aging nuclear weapons and facilities, proposed by the president in consultation with Congress, remains valid. As the head of NNSA told the House Armed Services Committee, “the country needs […] to have those capabilities.”

Second, adjustments to the plan proposed for FY2013 and beyond were hastily conceived — and it remains unclear whether the alternative strategy can even be executed. As Gen. C. Robert Kehler, head of Strategic Command, recently testified, “My biggest concern is what happens beyond ’13. […] Right now, we do not have a comprehensive plan in place for post fiscal year 2013. […] I am worried about this; […] I just don’t see the planning.”

The military risk from these schedule delays may not be manageable for long. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is concerned about the funding cuts that Congress has contemplated. “It would be tremendously shortsighted,” Panetta said last year, “if they reduce funds that are absolutely essential for modernization. … If we aren’t staying ahead of it, we jeopardize the security of this country.”